Internal Devils - Chapter 16

Chapter 16: Smells Good

In the night, a small black donkey walked along a road, a lovely girl sitting on its back. A maid wearing double buns walked in front of them. She carried a small blue package with white patterns, and was holding a lantern in her hand.

The black donkey had been taken good care of. Its hair was shiny like it was oiled.  It raised its white chin while walking. The 2 copper bells in front of its chest were jingling, and the sound spread far away in the night.

A common hairstyle of maids.

When the maid got to the bottom of a series of gentle hills, she kicked something accidentally. She frowned and cried out in a low voice.

She was wearing a pair of shoes made of thin cloth, and the thing she kicked was sharp and hard, so her foot was hurt. Furrowing her delicate eyebrows, she put her lantern closer to the ground, and found that it was a saber. She looked into the distance, and then turned around to talk to the one on donkeyback: “Aya! Miss, look!”

The light of the lantern lit up the area, and that made the weapons on the ground, and the burnt skeletons of carts visible. The carts leaned on the hill in a disordered way, and a large area of grass around them was also burnt.

The girl on the donkey tilted her head and looked at the ground, and then covered her mouth with her hand: “Aya!”

Her eyes were black and shiny, and her face was fair and clear, it almost shimmered in the night. Her hands were thin - a typical pair of hands for a young lady from a noble family. However, her dark hair was simply combed and tied behind her head, and was decorated by a single wooden hairpin, which didn’t look ladylike at all.

“It’s...it’s...” The young lady on the donkey said in a soft voice, “Was this done by bandits?”

The maid thought for a while, and then nodded without doubt: “Yes, I think.”

The young lady on donkeyback put her other hand on her chest, and furrowed her thin eyebrows: “Wouldn’t many people have died?”

The maid waved her hands and said: “No, no, no, Miss, look, there is only the weapon but not blood on the ground. Maybe the people are still fine.”

“I’ve never seen such a thing. I want to go and see it.” The young lady peered at the forest in the distance - The tall trees which mixed with each other in the night, looking like countless giant demons, rustled in the night wind.

The little maid sighed with annoyance. She lifted her head to look at the girl on donkeyback, and started to count with her fingers: “*Sigh* Miss. A few days ago you said you had never seen a monkey show, so we traveled 2 days to watch the monkey show. Then you said you’d never seen a storyteller, so we went to the tea house and listened to their Tale of the Dragon Lord for a day and a half. On the day before yesterday, you said you want to try Hu cakes[1], so we waited a day in Hun City for the Hu merchants...but Miss, you also said that you wanted to see the lantern festival in Wei City - We are going to be late for that!”

2 storytellers in a tea house. Sometimes they play instruments and sing, instead of telling the stories by talking.

The young lady thought for a while, and sighed: “...but it smells good.”

The maid opened her eyes widely: “Huh?”

“That way, something smells good.” The young lady patted the donkey’s ass, and the black donkey walked away from the road for a few steps. The young lady sniffed, and raise her arm to point at the forest in the distance: “There, the fragrance went that way.”

The maid rubbed the bun on her head, looking troubled: “Miss...”

“Let’s go check it, please.” The young lady grinned and showed her even, snow-white teeth.

The little maid couldn’t persuade her young mistress, so she walked into the weeds with her lantern.

In the dark wilderness, there were 2 people, a donkey and a light in front of them as tiny as a bean. When the slim figure walked through the wildly grown weeds, the complaints of the maid could be heard: “If I had known it would be like this, I would have reported you to my lord.”

Pushing the grass aside, she kept complaining: “I thought sneaking out with my Miss would lead me to delicious food and great fun, and then I found that I’m already tired of everything my Miss likes. To be honest, Miss, you shouldn’t be like this - wandering all over the place without a plan. The most attractions are in the capital city. If you don’t want to, we can head for HaoHan Ocean[2], I’ve heard that--”

The young lady was not annoyed at all. Actually, it seemed that she didn’t listen to any words from her maid, and just stared into the forest.

After another half an hour of walking, the maid suddenly tripped and stumbled.

She looked at the ground, and then jumped up like a cat: “Aya, my shoes!”

Under the light of the lantern, There was a big stain on the blue satin vamp of her shoes which had delicate patterns embroidered on it. Now the sticky dark blood covered her shoes.

A man’s dead body lay in the grass, with a broken twig in his hand. Blood came out of his heck, where a finger-wide wound was. The wound was cut perfectly neatly.

Seeing this mess, the young lady was surprised, too. She cover her mouth with her hand, and said: “Ya! We just bought those shoes yesterday.”

Then she looked at the corpse: “You see? I told you they were gonna die.”

The little maid put on a sad face, and her voice sounded almost like sob: “Miss, let us go back - There must be more like this ahead!”

The girl on donkeyback gazed inside the forest, and smiled: “I think I smelled him. Let’s keep searching.”

Following the weak bloody smell, the mistress and her servant went deeper into the forest through the waist-high weeds.

The copper bell in front of the little black donkey’s chest jingled, and its sound spread far away in the night.

A satin shoe.
※※※※※※※

Li YunXin held his breath, and pushed the branches in front of him aside. He saw a swordsman with a sword in his hand. This one’s skills were not as good as the 2 he met last time. Not only his sword skill, but also his skill in using talismans.

ChiSongZi and KangCangZi could still use their talismans after their Seas of Qi were sealed. Before their talismans got destroyed by Li YunXin, they had helped them a lot,  including but not limited to tracking, hiding and restoring strength.

This swordsman before him was not as brilliant as those two. The 6 people scattered to 6 directions to hunt them down. They were confident, but so was Li YunXin.

He thought someone would distract the chasers and let him escape with ease, but now it seemed that the people of the escort team had brought him some troubles.

A man and a woman were running towards his direction in a panic. They seemed to be Qiao JiaXin and Qiao SiFu. It was dark in the forest. The only light was the shattered moonlight coming through the gaps between the leaves and the branches, and it was weak enough to be ignored. However, the unique smell of a girl and the slim outline of Qiao JiaXin’s figure let Li YunXin recognized her.

The 2 had tried their best to slow down their movements and to breathe lightly, in order to avoid drawing the attention of anyone. However, the hunter seemed to be more skillful than them - the swordsman was not further than one step away from Li YunXin, and was moving towards the 2 with light but determined steps. Li YunXin guessed that he would suddenly strike them when he was 5 steps away from them - A quarter of an hour ago, he saw the swordsman kill people like that. In the 5 steps, his thin sword moved so fast that it was like a flash of lightning. Li YunXin could see his intention and movements clearly, but without the support of spiritual power, his body failed to deal with them.

Luckily, he had practiced the Power of Water and Clouds since he was young, so he was quite skillful in holding his breath and hiding himself. If not, he would have been killed by the 2 priests, and wouldn’t have lived to this moment.

He looked around, hoping to find something, but he didn’t find anything.

There...should be someone around here.

Otherwise, where did that ghost come from?

Everyone by the fire was scared as the ghost appeared. When the ghost went towards the swordsmen, and had disrupted them, the people of the escort team started to run away. They thought the terrifying ghost could stop them for a while, even scare them away or kill them.

Nobody expected that, after being hit by a sword just once, the ghost disappeared.

If Li YunXin hadn’t done such kind of things, he would start to doubt that someone was creating an illusion to scare them with the Sensation Realm skill of the painting sect.

At this time, a few of the escort team had been killed, but the “strong one” still hadn’t shown himself.

The swordsman was only 7 steps away from the two.

However, at this moment, Qiao JiaXin and Qiao SiFu thought they were temporarily safe, so they started to whisper to each other, unaware of being preys of the hunter.

They didn’t know it was their conversation which saved them, because Li YunXin heard Miss.Qiao say that -

“Brother Si, do you think daddy and them have managed to escape?”

Qiao SiFu didn’t feel like answering her, or just didn’t know what to say.

Qiao JiaXin kept talking to herself: “I wonder how HE is. I hope he can also escape.”

Li YunXin sighed in his mind.

It seemed that those things he had done before had changed his image in the girl’s mind. Apart from his parents, she seemed to be the first person in the world to be honest and friendly to him for no reason.

...and that was the troublesome part of this.

If he didn’t hear those words, maybe he would just harden his heart, watch the swordsman kills the 2, and sneak away by himself.
But now, he felt that he probably couldn’t do that.

It was not a matter of morality or sympathy. It was because if this girl got killed right after she said those words...

His mind wouldn’t be free.

The night wind started to blow again, and the leaves rustled in the forest. Li YunXin took out his brush from his sleeve.

This brush had been by his side for almost 10 years, but its tip was still sharp, round, even, and strong*, which meant it was not an ordinary brush. However, for him, it was just so-so, not even as beautiful as the one he bought on the internet for a price of 25 CNY in his time.

He couldn’t create another painting array now, but he could do something to scare people. Being a painter, the most important quality is to be good at observing. Luckily, no matter before or in this life, he was always a person who liked to stare at things and people.

First of all, you must find out one’s essence, and the tracks of the spirits cycling within his, her or its body. Dao is formless, but there were spirits in the world - even a table would have spiritual power inside.

By finding out his essence, and painting on paper with a brush, the painter could build a connection with his soul, and create a illusion of him. His parents said it was the most basic skill of a painter, but in the secular world, it was regarded as an incredible skill of immortals.

Previously, he had painted a portrait of Lord Nine, and Lord Nine noticed that, so he came to save him from his trouble.

Now he had to use the same method to save Qiao JiaXin.

He had practiced this skill for more than 10 years, so it was done within the time of a breath. He hid the piece of paper in his sleeve. He flipped his hand, and moved his fingers so fast that it made them looked blurred. As he did this, a tiny figure appeared on the paper.

The swordsman took another step. He was only 6 steps away from Qiao JiaXin and Qiao SiFu.

Translator’s notes:
[1]Hu cakes胡饼: Hu means "from the far north and west". Typical Hu things are:Sesames, cucumbers, wasps, carrots and black peppers.

Hu cakes. Also called naans.
[2]HaoHan Ocean浩瀚洋: HaoHan=vast.